«Ho sperato fino all'ultimo che non lo facesse. Ci siamo telefonati con il Presidente Putin prima dell'inizio della guerra: ci siamo lasciati con l'intesa che ci saremmo risentiti. Alcune settimane dopo però Putin ha lanciato l'offensiva. Ho provato fino alla fine a parlargli. Detto questo, l'invasione non mi ha sorpreso: quasi 200 mila uomini in pieno assetto da guerra erano stati portati al confine dell'Ucraina. C'erano inoltre precedenti di quello che l'Unione Sovietica aveva fatto in Polonia, in Ungheria, in Cecoslovacchia. Mario Draghi Corriere della Sera
Every day our officers are working with our foreign intelligence service partners to share information and apply it together. Those allies and partners are a huge historical asset for the United States. They're what sets us apart from lonelier powers like Russia or China.
---And every day our analysts study the global landscape and provide the best insights we can, to help the president and other policy makers make well informed choices. Recognizing the good intelligence is America first line of defence. ...Politics truly must stop where the work of intelligence begins.
---...and have watched over the years as Putin has stood in a combustible combination of grievance and ambition and insecurity. ...His risk appetite has grown as his grip on Russia has tightened. His circle of advisors has narrowed. And in that small circle it has never been career enhancing to question his judgement or his stubborn almost mystical belief that his destiny is to restore Russia sphere of influence. ..By early last fall we and our partners in the US intelligence community had begun to gather disturbing and detailed intelligence about Putin plans for a major new invasion of Ukraine....I had learned over the years Putin's relentless determination especially on Ukraine.
---In early November president Biden asked tìme to travel to Russia to convey directly to Putin...I was troubled by what I heard. While it did not yet seem that he had made an irreversible decision to invade Ukraine, Putin was defiantly leaning in that direction apparently convinced that his window was closing for shaping Ukraine's orientation. He also seemed convinced that this window offered a favorable landscape with president Zelenski and the ukrainians unlikely in his view to mount effective resistance ...our european allies distracted by their own politics...When he launched his war seven weeks ago he was proven wrong on each of those counts.
---Throughout the conflict US intelligence has played a critical role armed with accurate and precise insights and information. The US government shared them energetically with our allies from the start. ...As allied leaders and counterparts have emphasized directly in my travels in Europe the credibility of US intelligence helped cement the solidarity of the alliance. William J. Burns

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